Dangerous Liaisons

[racaulk]

Dangerous Liaisons

Antigay Americans are losing the culture war, so they’re exporting hatred to Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria — where their fervor is so welcome it threatens to sweep the entire continent.

By Jeff Sharlet




Death sentences in Nigeria. Prison terms in Malawi. Violent, homophobic rhetoric spewed by dictators in Zimbabwe and Gambia. Perhaps nowhere on earth are gays persecuted more than in Africa — ground zero for a culture war waged by U.S. religious and political leaders. Through the lens of the missionary hotbed that is Uganda, Jeff Sharlet, author of C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy, reports on the deadly consequences of evangelicals’ antigay exports.

* * *

At the airport into Entebbe, the gateway for flights in and out of Uganda, near the capital city of Kampala, I recently met Tommy and Teresa Harris, a pair of American missionaries. She had friendly brown curls; he wore a salt-and-pepper sea captain’s beard. You could tell they were missionaries because their shirts said so: “Faithful Servant” was stitched on the breast pocket of his khaki safari gear and across her bright white T-shirt. That was the name of their ministry in Uganda. “Going home?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” Tommy said, his voice jumpy and Georgian. “We’re just going to get more money.”

“Mm-hmm,” Teresa concurred. It was May 2010. They’d been “in country” since 2002, when Tommy received a message from God directing him to Uganda. Nigeria, the continent’s most populous country, may send more preachers abroad to fill the pulpits of American churches (including at times those of Sarah Palin’s in Alaska and Ted Haggard’s former church in Colorado), and Rwanda may be officially designated the world’s first “Purpose-Driven Nation” — after the best-selling book by pastor Rick Warren — but Uganda is special missionary bait. It’s where the revival that launched born-again Christianity across the region in 1935 began. Fred Hartley, whose Atlanta-based College of Prayer claims nearly two dozen “campuses” in half a dozen African countries — all dedicated to teaching American-style evangelicalism to the continent’s leaders — told me that Uganda is the premier site for “spiritual war” in the world right now.

“Spiritual war” is a theological term, but in Uganda — ground zero for an explosion in violent homophobia across Africa — it’s taking increasingly concrete form. For the Ugandan government, that’s a pragmatic strategy as much as a spiritual one. Since 1986, Uganda has been ruled by an autocrat, Yoweri Museveni, who correctly guessed that American evangelicals eager to do good works and to save the heathen could be a big source of income for his regime.

<---snip--->


Link: http://www.advocate.com/Print_Issue/Cover_Stories/Dangerous_Liaisons

___________________________

An excellent article on the current anti-gay fervor in parts of Africa, largely being whipped up by American evangelicals and African political and religious leaders. Frightening stuff, but the article is well worth reading.

:hi:

[HillWilliam]

1. Because colonialism and wackjob religion

have worked out so well for Africa so far. :sarcasm:

Honestly, it's bad enough that these wackogelicals pick pockets and fuck minds within our own borders. Now they're exporting their malicious brand of thievery world-wide. Their MO hasn't changed a bit: prey on the most vulnerable and suck up to the rich and powerful.